The Parable Of The Three Friends Series

The Parable of the Three Friends

(Full disclosure: Dr. Vance Havner wrote a sermon based on this text in his book, “Why Not Just Be Christians?”, published by Fleming Revell before 1977. This message is not a plagiary of his work. I preached a sermon based on this text on Sunday evening, June 1, 2025 at New Hope Baptist Church near Fulton, MO. This is not an exact transcription.)

Introduction: Our Lord Jesus Christ spent a lot of time in prayer while He lived on this earth. After He had finished praying at a certain location, one of His disciples asked Him, “Lord, teach us to pray”. The Lord did so and added a parable, maybe with a bit of humor, to illustrate what it really means to pray.

1 The Lord gave an example of prayer

Text: Luke 11:1-4, KJV: 1 And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. 2 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. 3 Give us day by day our daily bread. 4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

In the immediate context, the Lord had just recently spoken the parable of the Good Samaritan and had enjoyed the company of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha in Bethany (all in Luke 10). Now He is at “a certain place”, not specified, and He has just finished praying. Sometimes He prayed with others, but sometimes He prayed alone. What’s important to remember is that if the Lord needed to pray, how much more do we!

Here He had been praying but one of the disciples (not named) came to Him and asked a simple request, “Lord, teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples”. Andrew and Philip had been disciples of John (the Baptist, our Lord’s fore-runner) so this unnamed disciple could have been one of them but we’ll never know this side of Heaven. Someone once suggested that the disciple who asked was left unnamed so that any of us could ask the same question!

And the Lord seemed pleased when the disciple made the request. Without going too deeply, we can see it’s a shorter edition, we might say, of the so-called “Lord’s Prayer” in Matthew 6. The basic framework is the same, just with a briefer focus. Besides, the “Lord’s Prayer” in the Sermon on the Mount was given to a large crowd but this model prayer was given only to one of the Lord’s disciples.

That was all this disciple had asked for, but the Lord wasn’t done yet; no, not by a long shot. He had given then a sample prayer; now He was going to give them an example of how to pray!

2 The Lord gave a parable about prayer

Text, Luke 11:5-8, KJV: 5 And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; 6 For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? 7 And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. 8 I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.

Even though this isn’t technically called a parable, it has all the key ingredients for one. There are no proper names, no locations, yet a plausible scenario that some of them may have experienced themselves at one time or another. This parable involves the tension or conflict between home live (especially at night) and the more or less unwritten laws of hospitality.

Now, the Lord sets the stage by describing a man whom we’ll call “Friend A”. He’s the point of the story because Friend A has a Friend B who has just received a sticky situation. Friend B comes to Friend A’s house—at midnight!—and says, in so many words, “Hey, friend, can you loan me three loaves of bread? I wasn’t expecting Friend C to show up at midnight, but here he is, he’s hungry, and I don’t have anything to feed him! How about it, buddy?”

Anybody who’s been wakened (cheated?) out of a good night’s sleep would not be, likely, too anxious to get up and give the one knocking on the door anything but a very strongly worded protest! Friend A, the one who had been sleeping soundly, promptly replied, “Trouble me not” which is a polite way of saying, “Get outta here! Go away! Scram!” or similar phrases. Bottom line: “DON’T BOTHER ME!”